Top 20 Keyboard Shortcuts everyone should know
Keyboard shortcuts can speed up your productivity on a computer significantly. They usually replace multiple operations that are performed with the mouse with a set of keys that you need to press more or less simultaneously. Take the opening of the Windows Task Manager for instance. If you use the keyboard, you simply use the shortcut Ctrl-Shift-Esc to open the task manager on the system. Without the shortcut, you would have to search for the task manager (for instance in the start menu) to load it from there.
The following list highlights twenty important keyboard shortcuts that computer users should be familiar with.
Program shortcuts
- Ctrl-a highlights everything in a folder or document.
- Ctrl-c copies the selected item or text to the clipboard.
- Ctrl-v pastes the contents of the clipboard into the active program.
- Ctrl-f opens the search in many programs. All web browsers and the majority of Office applications for instance support this. F3 may work sometimes as well.
- Ctlr-s saves a document or web page in many programs, including Office and web browsers.
- Ctrl-z undos the last action.
- Ctrl-left arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word, while Ctrl-right arrow to the beginning of the next word.
- Ctrl-Shift-left arrow or right arrow highlights the full previous or next word.
- Ctrl-Backspace deletes the word on the left of the cursor.
- Ctrl-Home moves the cursor to the top of the document, while Ctrl-End to the end of it.
- Esc cancels the current task.
Windows shortcuts
- Ctrl-Shift-Esc opens the Windows Task Manager. (Windows 7 and newer)
- Ctrl-Shift-click on a taskbar icon to open the program with administrative privileges.(Windows 7 and newer)
- Shift-click on a taskbar icon to launch another instance of the program
- Alt-Tab lets you switch between open programs and windows, Alt-Shift-Tab walks through the listing backwards.
- Alt-F4 closes the active item or exits the active program
- Alt-Esc cycles through the list of open programs in the order they have been opened.
- Windows-d displays the desktop, while Windows-m minimizes all windows to show the desktop, and Windows-Shift-m restores the windows to their original position.
- Windows-e opens My Computer in Windows Explorer
- Windows-r opens the run box to start programs from there.
You find a full list of keyboard shortcuts for Windows at the Microsoft Products website. Shortcuts are listed here for all recent operating systems and other Microsoft products such as Office or Internet Explorer.
Have another shortcut that you make use of all the time? Let us know about it in the comments.
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this is so incredibly useful! i don’t know what i would do without this article. it single handedly increased my productivity 20 fold and now i work even faster than my poor old computer can handle.
This is outdated
Ctrl+Alt+Del opens the task manager (not directly but by selecting from the pop up list ).This shortcut will be definitely useful when any programs hangs up and stranded pcs.
which anti virus software is best
I use Ctrl+p to print the screen
Thanks for the tutorial, very appropriate
ctrl-c / ctrl-v in my opinion the operations with greater ability to optimize the working time
Ctrl+9 to hide rows in Excel (and Ctrl+Shift+9 to unhide).
Windows – up arrow : To Restore Up and Maximize the program/Documents.
windows – Down arrow : To Restore Down and Minimize the program/Documents.
Windows – Tap : lets you switch between open programs in running mode.
article just missed all the browser-specific shortcuts.
Ctrl-H: History, and in firefox Ctrl-Shift-H is sometimes useful.
Ctrl-J: Downloads
Ctrl-F: find, but F3 works too, and Firefox allows slash to quick-find.
Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Shift-Tab: next and previous tab
Ctrl-F4: Close current tab.u
Awsome posts! Learning many stuff now-a-days :-) I also found some keywords short cut from here
http://www.widerinfo.com/top-15-keyboard-shortcuts-you-should-know/
crtl-y to redo something if you change your mind after using crtl-z
super useful in my opinion!!
I believe there is a mistype in the title:
Top 20 Keyboard Shortcuts
everyone should (now) should be know?
You are right, corrected.
Thanks for this educating article :)
Yeah, it seems the article just missed all the browser-specific shortcuts. The main ones are:
Ctrl-T: open new tab
Ctrl-Shift-T: open last closed tab
F5: Refresh, but there’s usually a cacheless refresh shortcut too!
Ctrl-H: History, and in firefox Ctrl-Shift-H is sometimes useful.
Ctrl-J: Downloads
Ctrl-F: find, but F3 works too, and Firefox allows slash to quick-find.
Ctrl-Tab, Ctrl-Shift-Tab: next and previous tab
Ctrl-F4: Close current tab.
Esc: Stop loading the page (useful for large pages that you only need the first part of). This is in the “Program shortcuts” section above, but many people forget about it!
I did not want to add application-specific shortcuts to the listing. I do have to admit though that I’m using many of the shortcuts that you have listed on a regular basis.
One shortcut that often goes unmentioned is Ctrl+w to close a window (similar to ctrl+f4 or Alt+F4). It can be used to close tabs in IE,Firefox. Can be used to closed Windows Explorer. I find this shortcut very useful personally.
in firefox you can do it even easier with addon “escape to close tab”
in the address bar type the shot name of any .com, .org or .net site and then hit ctrl+enter and it will go to the site by putting in the http and the suffix for you. works in firefox and exploder
example: to go to yahoo.com type ‘yahoo’ then hit ctrl+enter.
Dont forget the most important one:
Ctrl+A+A
You might want to specify that most of these shortcuts are Windows-specific. It’s not the 90s anymore, people have different OS on their PC :-p
Just used another shortcut I forgot to post :D
ctrl-shift-n creates a new folder in windows explorer
Believe the caption should read “know” not “now”
Exactly what I want to pointing out.
In Win 7:
Windows-1-9: start software that’s pinned to the taskbar, minimize/maximize running software
Windows-t: switch through software in taskbar, enter to maximize
Windows-tab = alt-tab with another look (although I prefer alt-tab)
Windows-p: choose monitor(s) if using multiple monitors
Windows-arrows: arrange the open window (move to left, right, maximized)
Windows-shift-arrows: switch the open window to another monitor
Windows-f: search
Windows-L: lock Windows
Thanks for posting those, some great ones there.
Agree with Oz re XP – it’s also a quick way to open task manager during logon, before malware can disable it
I use Alt-PrintScreen a lot to grab a screenshot of only the open window instead of the whole desktop
I use printscreen all the time, great one.
Ctrl-left arrow moves the cursor to the beginning of the previous word, while Ctrl-right arrow to the beginning of the next word.
Ctrl-Shift-left arrow or right arrow highlights the full previous or next word.
Windows-e opens My Computer in Windows Explorer
These was new for me, thanks!
“Alt-Tab lets you switch between open programs and windows, Alt-Shift-Tab walks through the listing backwards. Also works in web browsers and many other tab-driven programs.”
Alt tab doesn’t work for browsers, otherwise the “alt+tab” functionality wouldn’t work at all if other apps took it over. Are you perhaps thinking of Ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab, which often lets you change browser tabs?
It is Ctrl-Tab, you are right. Have removed the sentence from the article.
Ctrl+Shift+Esc worked back in XP